Letter from Havana
When I was planning my new book, The Believer, I knew I wanted to visit Cuba. Back then, I certainly wasn’t expecting a fishing trip near the Bay of Pigs to coincide with a deadly conflict with Cold War undertones. This isn’t a political newsletter, but we can all agree it’s a tragic situation that echoes worldwide. This may not the ideal time to write about travel, but let’s look at it as an escape, or at least a modest distraction, from more important matters.
Being in Cuba for the first time is a real experience: Exciting, bracing, lovely, bittersweet. This country has been through a lot and I’m not sure I appreciated the severity of the facts on ground: the poverty, the lack of basic infrastructure, the way the country’s locked in time—and not in the picturesque way. Those old cars look good, but they run badly on diesel, and are inaccessible to most of the population.
Having said that, there are so many pleasures in Havana, a truly lovely city in very real decay. There’s a faded grandeur from a time that feels completely disconnected from the one we live in now. There are great new hotels in old buildings, like the Jesús Maria, a perfectly restored set of houses near the water, and La Reserva Vedado, also beautifully restored in a smarter part of town, with a very good courtyard restaurant (my favorite place to eat). These aren’t technically “hotels” (which are run by the state), so they’re open to Americans. These very fine distinctions, which end up mattering quite a lot. You can’t access any website or app from any US financial institution (wire you rent in advance!) or even sites like Spotify or eBay.